Her Story.

Her Bio:

Chris Auer, BSN, RNC, IBCLC has worked at a tertiary care (or if you prefer- a teaching) hospital for more than 40 years, the last 25 of them in the role of lactation consultant. Her work focuses on supporting mothers across an economic spectrum to meet their breastfeeding goals. Chris has experience working with breastfeeding mothers of premature infants, mothers with multiple births, women for whom English is not their first language, and those with opioid dependency. Working with interdisciplinary teams in NICU, L/D, and mother-baby units, Chris has helped to establish evidence-based practices to support mothers and babies, and she has written breastfeeding policies that reflect current national standards for hospital settings that comply with the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative and Joint Commission. She has recently authored a new book, “Under One Sky” – find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Chris-Auer/e/B079VFW4Q2

Her Background:

Chris states that she “fell” into nursing. She comes from Akron, Ohio and then went to the University of Cincinnati. She married and is the mother of 4 adult children. Chris began her nursing career in pediatrics ICU, and after some time, meandered into maternity and newborn ICU. The head nurse of the mother baby unit handed her a flyer and said, this seems like something you would be interested in. The flyer was about training in lactation. She said the charge nurse seems to give you all the breastfeeding mothers. She did not have any of her 4 children at this point. She noticed that she liked sitting with the mothers and listening to their stories, beyond the breastfeeding experience. She enjoyed being part cheerleader, part nurturing. Breastfeeding is partly a confidence game and it instills confidence in moms when you are by there side for all the ups and downs of postpartum, which helps to build the breastfeeding confidence.

Chris went through a small course that was offered by Karen Kerkhoff Gromada, who wrote Mother Multiples and was a wonderful mentor to Chris. She co-authored a paper on quadruplets with Karen. Chris remains friends with some of her early mentors who are now IBCLCs.

Chris just re-certified for an additional 5 years which will take her to her 30th year.
Chris had her first child in 1977 and her second was born in 1979. Her last two were born in 1985 and 1986. Breastfeeding came fairly easy to Chris and she somewhat kids that she feels a bit guilty about this. We had a nice conversation about the fantasy of breastfeeding and the reality of it for a lot of moms. The tendency is to think that because this is a natural thing to do, that breastfeeding would come naturally.

A few stories from her book:

She tells this fascinating and awe inspiring story of a mom who came into the hospital very ill.

Her Story about the giggling dermatologists:

Chris asked the mom to Show her how you have been doing it. She showed me and I said that we could probably get a deeper latch so your baby can get some more milk. So, I showed her by using a swift movement to get the baby on deeper.

Dad said: You know how the baby fed twice before?
Chris said: yeah. Dad said: Well, I don’t think she fed at all.

Chris shares a few stories from her book throughout this show.

Diverse Community – Using translators in the hospital –

Always interesting working with the interpreter as mom asks all kinds of questions and some have to do with their postpartum care after they discussed breastfeeding. Since I used the translator phones, I could really understand what she was talking about. We agreed that one never knows what the translators are thinking.

Chris tells us that they had 1 interpreter, Bob, who was a male nurse. He was funny and so engaged with the patients. Chris says that he probably could have done lactation consults after a few months of working with her.

Chris eventually took a course in Spanish and became proficient enough to communicate with parents in Spanish. However, there were times that the discussion was more complicated and she made the decision to use the translators via the phone.

Funny story about learning from different cultures: Mom from the Philippines –

Chris saw her on the 2nd day when her baby was about 47 hours old. She noticed that they were using formula. Dad said: Her milk was not in yet and she told me massage me, so I have been massaging her back and massaging her back some more. It worked – her milk came in and now we don’t need that formula. Chris was skeptical and asked permission to see her breasts and guess what? They were very full. There must be something to this cultural belief.

Naming her book:

Chris tells us that she had quite a few titles that she ran by members of her writing group. From their feedback, she settled on 2 or 3, which were not the title she settled on.A year ago, she went to her granddaughters grandparents day and they sang a song by Chris Barton called – Under One Sky

She went to and they sang a song called:

Under one sky there’s a baby’s cry.
Under one sky a mothers lullabye,
Under one sky, we are all a part of everything.

Chris said:

I feel that if we can come together, stay connected, find our common ground, we will all be better off for it. So, I changed the title.

Parting thoughts:

To the lactation consultants – If you have a passion, that’s all thats needed. Keep up with your Cerps, Find your lactation support system.

Mothers, Mothers to be: Build your support team now. Find those who have common ground with you. Include your extended family. Make sure your care providers for your baby are in sync with your hopes and dreams.

You can purchase the book on Amazon

Join our Facebook group and share any comments about Chris and her book on our page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJiq_aqDws